Archive for Dec 2013

London was the very first city I visited outside of the United States. I was 12 and my grandmother took me for a little vacation. We stayed at the InterContinental, there was a middle of the night fire alarm. Gaga was mortified to be forced downstairs in her rollers, until a woman with the most amazing head of hair commented that she adored them. I was too young to realize it, but the gorgeous woman was Diana Ross. I don’t remember much else about London

Chris has been dying to visit, and I used the beautiful city as a bargaining chip for my five weeks in Paris. It worked and was the loveliest opening act for this amazing trip.

We stayed in Notting Hill, at a simple little hotel, 10 Pembridge Gardens. We did the touristy sites and splurged on Christmas tea at Brown’s Hotel. We popped into pubs and sampled lots of the local brews, one of my favorites in Soho, The Crown and Churchill Arms in Notting Hill. We spent our last morning wandering through Notting Hills markets and antique shop, highly recommended!

Because we were there over Christmas and Boxing Day, getting around the city and visiting almost anything was pretty tough. If you’re thinking about going, know that the tube & all buses are completely shutdown for Christmas Day. You can walk, take a cab (which was so incredibly expensive) or rent a bike (there are stands throughout the city.) We didn’t do it, but apparently Addison Lee is a minicab company, running about half the cost of a black cab (I imagine it’s similar to an Uber.) Most restaurants were closed, so we stuck to hotels that would be open for their guests and headed for an Indian restaurant for dinner. Even though it was tough, it was oh so lovely. The city is decorated so beautifully for the holidays, and you can feel the Christmas spirit in the air. Not a bad place to be

My grandfather always wanted to drive a Winnebago across the country. Apparently it was something that he talked about a lot, even though I can’t even begin to imagine my grandparents rolling up to Yosemite in a motorized living room. It was something that he had planned on doing when he retired, when there was time to do that kind of thing. But he had a stroke at 64 and lived the rest of his years in a nursing home, confined to a bed. Not that my grandfather didn’t have a million adventures, but I always found it so sad that this one went unrealized. It always seems like there’s going to be time to do these things, no? We work hard now, reap the benefits later. But, as morbid as it sounds, we’re not guaranteed later. So I plan to live, all out, now.

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If we’ve ever met, you probably know that I have a special affinity for France. The food, and the wine, and the language, and the culture. It’s my place and I try to get there as often as I can. My dream is to live there, but just picking up and heading out isn’t really an option, at least not now. So, we’re going to go test it out. We’re going to leisurely walk the streets and only eat one dinner a night because we don’t have to squeeze twelve restaurants that I’m dying to try into seven nights. We’re going to relax, with no projects and no renovations. We’re going to walk through the Louvre, and maybe not just hit the major attractions, maybe stroll to see it all. We’re going to sit at cafes and maybe spend an entire afternoon with a cafe au lait. We’re going to reset from one of our busiest years yet. And we’re going to live. Maybe it will get the living abroad bug out of my system. Or maybe it will become more clear that we should figure out how to do it for real. But I never want to regret waiting, I want the adventure.

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There will be lots of pictures I’m sure, and I’ll be back with some pretty images of my place. Can’t wait to share it with you!